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Monday, November 28, 2011

Believe it or not, that was the actual age of a child named Lina Medina, who gave birth to a baby boy, Gerardo, (named after her doctor), via C-section. ﻿

"Into the hospital at Pisco, Peru last month came a tired, ragged Indian woman
from the foothills of the Andes. She led by the hand a shy little girl, scarcely
three feet tall, with chestnut braids and an enormously bulging abdomen.
Pointing to the frightened child, the Indian woman begged Surgeon Geraldo Lozada
to exorcise the evil spirits which had taken possession of her..."- time.com

Lina Medina, seven and a half months into pregnancy

Lina Medina (born September 27, 1933, in Ticrapo, Huancavelica Region, Peru) is the youngest confirmed mother mother in medical history, giving birth at the age of five years, seven months and 17 days. She currently lives in Lima, the capital of Peru.

Born to silversmith Tiburelo Medina and Victoria Losea, Medina was brought to a hospital by her parents at the age of five years due to increasing abdominal size, after the shamans of their village couldn’t find a cure. She was originally thought to have had a tumor, but her doctors determined she was in her seventh month of pregnancy. Dr. Gerardo Lozada took her to Lima, Peru, prior to the surgery to have other specialists confirm that Medina was pregnant.

A month and a half after the original diagnosis, on May 14, 1939, Medina gave birth to a boy by a caesarean section necessitated by her small pelvis. The surgery was performed by Dr. Lozada and Dr. Busalleu, with Dr. Colareta providing anaesthesia. Her case was reported in detail by Dr. Edmundo Escomel in the medical journal La Presse Médicale, including the additional details that her menarche had occurred at eight months of age, in contrast to a past report stating that she had been having regular periods since she was three years old (or 2½ according to a different article). The report also detailed that she had prominent breast development by the age of four. By age five, her figure displayed pelvic widening and advanced bone maturation.

When doctors performed the caesarean to deliver her baby, they found she already had fully mature sexual organs from precocious puberty.

Her Son and Later LifeMedina's son weighed 2.7 kg (6.0 lb; 0.43 st) at birth and was named Gerardo after her doctor. Gerardo was raised believing that Medina was his sister, but found out at the age of 10 that she was his mother. He grew up healthy but died in 1979 at the age of 40 of a bone marrow disease.

Medina never revealed the father of the child nor the circumstances of her impregnation. Dr. Escomel suggested she might not actually know herself by writing that Medina "couldn't give precise responses". Medina's father was arrested on suspicion of rape and incest, but was later released due to lack of evidence. According to a 1955 article reviewing the case, "Some pointed out there were frequent festivities celebrated by Indians in Andean villages like the one where Lina was born. These often ended up in orgies in which rape was not uncommon. But if this theory were accepted, there still was no explanation of how a five-year-old girl could conceive a child. There hasn't been to this day."

In young adulthood, she worked as a secretary in the Lima clinic of Dr. Lozada, who gave her an education and helped put her son through high school. Medina later married Raúl Jurado, who fathered her second son in 1972. As of 2002[update], they lived in a poor district of Lima known as "Chicago Chico" ("Little Chicago"). She refused an interview with Reuters that year, just as she had turned away many reporters in years past.

Lina Medina, 5, with her doctorand son at age 11 months

﻿
Although the case was called a hoax by some, a number of doctors over the years have verified it based on biopsies, X rays of the fetal skeleton in utero, and photographs taken by the doctors caring for her. Extreme precocious puberty in children 5 or under is very uncommon; pregnancy and delivery by a child this young remains extremely rare. Extreme precocious puberty is treated to suppress fertility, preserve growth potential, and reduce the social consequences of full sexual development in childhood.

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